Sorry folks: despite what some people had led us to expect, there are no water features on the first working A380. No casinos or swimming pools, either. You can’t lift weights on it and you can’t go ice-skating on it - but hey, there’s good news too. If there was ever a plane designed to join the mile-high club on, this is it. It’s got a double bed.

The sky’s first marital love-nest – which drew gasps of admiration from waiting journalists when Singapore Airlines showed off their new double-decker super-jumbo in Toulouse today – will naturally grab the headlines, but it’s pretty much the only gimmick the first customer has seen fit to put on the largest passenger plane ever built. While other airlines rashly promised no end of unlikely features, Singapore simply said theirs would be the most luxurious commercial aircraft in the sky. And guess what? It is.

Start at the bottom (oddly, the airline has chosen to place its first class area on the lower deck), because it’s for the premium cabins that they’ve pulled out all the stops. In fact, first is so posh they even refuse to call it first – they’re the Singapore Suites, apparently.

To get an idea of the experience, think of a pod hotel, or an ultra-luxurious office cubicle. Inside your partitioned-off area, there’s an extra-wide seat (it’s around three feet), another seat for visitors (the cubicle is comfortably large enough for two, and could seat three at a squeeze) and a 23-inch TV. When you’re sleepy, the crew will lay out a Givenchy-designed duvet over your clever fully-flat bed, which folds down from the wall.

For four of the Suites, partitions can be removed to create what are effectively two double cabins, each with their own double bed. The mile-high club is no longer the preserve of the athletic, then – but you’ll still need to be something of a daredevil: for safety reasons, those partitions only go up to around eye height, allowing the crew and passers-by to easily look over the top and check you’re not up to anything too fruity.

This isn’t the only first-class cabin in the sky – India’s Jet Airways launched one earlier this year – but it’s still a level of luxury we’re not used to seeing on aircraft. You’ll pay for it, of course: on the plane’s first route, from Singapore to Sydney, a ticket for one of these cabins won’t leave you with much change from £2,000. That’s something over £4 a minute – or £8 a minute if you’re lucky enough to be sharing a cabin with your loved one. If you are going to have sex up there, then, it had better be good.

The business class is, in its own way, even better. The seat is almost ridiculously wide – in fact it can accommodate two comfortably. Some journalists actually claimed it was TOO wide – a strange concept. Naturally enough, there’s a flat bed, which again folds down from the wall, and has a very comfy mattress – as I can attest, it’s all too easy to start drifting off. The TV screen’s just 15 inches, but you’ll manage. For all this, Singapore say they’ll charge 15 per cent over normal business class prices: not a bad deal, considering it’s easily the equal of first class on some other carriers.

And what about where most of us will end up, in economy? Well, there are none of the whistles and bells of the premium classes, but there are improvements which will help to make a long flight that bit more bearable. The seat pitch (the distance between your seat and the one in front) is a bog-standard 32 inches, but clever design of the seat backs – which indent at the bottom – has made it feel considerably wider, with plenty of room for jutting knees.

When you recline the backrest, the bottom of the seat slides forward, creating a more comfortable snoozing position and opening yet more space out for the passenger behind. There are power and USB ports for your laptop; a smart seatback reading light, which avoids disturbing your neighbours; and the seat is a touch wider that normal too, nearly an inch more than a standard 747 economy seat - not much, but on a long flight, every little helps.

The verdict? It’s too early to say. The signs are that, in every class, this will be a world-beater – but it’s only when this plane takes off on its first commercial flight on October 25, with its full complement of 471 passengers, that we can put it to a realistic test. I’ll be one of them. I can’t wait.

In the meantime, for those of you still disappointed at the lack of driving ranges and football pitches on board, here’s a snippet you might like. Word has it that a Saudi prince has ordered an A380 (list price, $320m – though smile and they might do you a deal), as his private plane, to kit out as he wishes. We understand it’s an individual who is a connoisseur of the turf. Hmm … a racetrack on the bottom deck… well, why not?

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